The IPCC’s prediction for average sea-level rise this century is 13 inches (if global warming continues unchecked). Today’s report from a group of climatologist ups the prediction to 33 inches. This is what the difference looks like on a pair of identical twins. Photo Illustration courtesy Greg Ceo.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the world’s foremost body for weighing and assessing climate science -- received a kick in the pants today from members who say the climate situation is much worse than the IPCC has so far reported.

Twenty-six climatologists -- including 14 IPCC members -- have released a startling update to the panel’s work, reporting that sea levels could rise and methane-laden arctic permafrost could melt much sooner than the panel had anticipated.

“The Copenhagen Diagnosis: Updating the World on the Latest Climate Science” is not an official IPCC report; it’s a summary of the hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers that have been published since the IPCC’s last assessment. It was released now to fill the long gap in between official IPCC reports -- the last was released in 2007, but the drafting text is more than three years old, and the next isn't scheduled until 2013. It was also timed to the Copenhagen climate talks, of course.

The essence of the new report is that things are grimmer than the IPCC has reported. And it’s not like the panel has been painting a rosy picture -- its 2007 report concluded that the warming-induced melting of the Greenland ice sheet could create significant sea-level rise in this century. IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri said at the time, “If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment."

The new diagnosis finds that arctic sea ice is melting 40 percent faster than the panel estimated just a few years ago. Another startling finding: Satellites have found that the global average for rising sea levels was 3.4 millimeters per year from 1993-2008. The IPCC estimated it would be 1.9 mm for that period -- short by 80 percent.

The report’s authors (who include the preeminent Stephen Schneider) write that “if global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly." If you're keeping score, 2015 is just over five years away -- somewhat less comforting than the distant "2050" you used to hear so much about.

In a time when the correspondence of scientists is hacked and stolen and as a matter of political strategy, some will no doubt dismiss the group’s research entirely. And even IPCC fans may question whether its decision-making process is swift enough to remain relevant. It certainly seems that events are outpacing the political system's ability to deal with them.

Below are the key findings from the report:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were nearly 40 percent higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present-day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25 percent probability that warming exceeds 2°C, even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increases the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-induced warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.19°C per decade, in very good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short-term fluctuations are occurring as usual, but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40 percent greater than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimated: Satellites show recent global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be ~80 percent above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps, and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets

Sea-level predictions revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4; for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as ~ 2 meters sea level rise by 2100. Sea level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperatures have been stabilized, and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental icesheets, Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increases strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2 °C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society -- with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases -- needs to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-95% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

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The climate problem is incredibly complex. Heck, it’s unfathomably complex to most folks, as it involves chemistry, computer models, economic development, and, of course, the weather.

This complexity demands strong, explanatory journalism—the kind of fact gathering and storytelling that too many news organizations are ignoring in an era of declining budgets and celebrity infatuations.

There are exceptions, thankfully. The good people at the Earth Journalism Awards have singled out 15 journalistic approaches to the climate problem (or aspects of it) that they believe did the best job at exploring the issue and breaking it down for their readers.

The 15 finalists for the 2009 awards include a Scientific American series on carbon sequestration and a report from the Business Daily of Nairobi on how Kenya’s companies are losing out in the global carbon trading scheme.

You, dear reader, have a voice in selecting the winner of the Earth Journalism Global Public Award.  Go to the site, read the stories, and vote on the one you think is the best.

You’ll be doing two important things—informing yourself, and supporting journalists who are doing their best to gather facts about the most consequential threat facing humanity.

The winning story will be presented at the Earth Journalism Awards ceremony to an audience of negotiators, climate change experts, activists and media representatives in Copenhagen on December 14 on the eve of the negotiations.”

Follow the Earth Journalism Awards on Facebook.

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Jon Stewart praises ‘SuperFreak’ author

Cross-posted from Think Progress.

On last night’s Daily Show, host Jon Stewart heaped praise on the contrarian approach to global warming taken by SuperFreakonomics author Steve Levitt, a University of Chicago economist. Stewart was dismissive of the widespread criticism of Levitt and co-author Stephen Dubner, asking, “Have you stepped on a secular religion?” Stewart, often a tough interviewer, coddled Levitt, saying, “I’m sorry you’ve taken so much shit for it.” He blamed the uproar over SuperFreakonomics on people who “feel you are betraying environmentalism”:

Watch it:

SuperFreakonomics mischaracterizes the field in order to argue that “moralism and angst” has blinded scientists and policymakers from pursuing the “cheap and simple solution” of geoengineering. Although the book condemns scientists for fearmongering and promotes a radical alternative to existing policy, Levitt tells Stewart, “I don’t try to pretend I know the science.”

In reality, the critics of Levitt’s treatment of climate science and policy are not “dogmatic” believers of a “secular religion” -- they are highly respected climate scientists, energy experts, and economists, including climate scientist Ken Caldeira, who has said Levitt and Dubner misrepresented his views. The widespread criticism isn’t based on the book’s personal attacks on Al Gore or its mocking of global warming as a “religion,” but on the multitude of factual errors, misrepresentations, and false conclusions that the authors use to promote their mindless contrarianism. As science journalist Eric Pooley writes, “The book claims the opposite of what Caldeira believes.”

Levitt recommends untested, planetary scale geo-engineering to block the sun as a “band-aid” that “buys us time” if “we might need to do something,” because carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for a long time. However, scientists concerned that global warming needs to be reduced rapidly have already found a well-proven approach that’s cheaper and safer than pumping unlimited amounts of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere: stopping black carbon emissions of soot from diesel and biomass burning.

Stewart rightly concluded, “I really don’t know what I’m talking about, do I?” However, he failed to understand his mistake when he added that he had “apparently frightened our audience by suggesting that conservation isn’t the only way out of any of our problems.”

Stewart has excoriated other media darlings for their laissez-faire approach to serious issues, from Tucker Carlson to Jim Cramer, and just last week skewered CNN for its failure to do even basic fact-checking of its guests. Unfortunately, in this instance, there was nothing funny about Stewart’s inaccuracy.

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Cross-posted from The Huffington Post.

The forthcoming SuperFreakonomics, written by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, plays fast and loose with the scientific consensus on climate change. The book's fifth chapter, "Global Cooling," revisits a number of discredited arguments that misinform readers about the danger unchecked global warming poses to the United States and the world.

The authors also gloss over solutions available now that could help reduce global warming and instead promote a futuristic technology that makes for an interesting read, but, unfortunately, would do nothing to cut pollution now.

Muddling Climate Science

Excess carbon dioxide from burning gas in cars and coal in power plants and destroying tropical forests has increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to levels unseen in millions of years and is largely to blame for the increase in global average temperature scientists have measured over the past century.

As the authors ably explain, damage from carbon dioxide production is an economic externality, something one person or one business does that affects everyone else in the world. But strangely, the authors spend a great deal of the chapter seemingly defending the idea of increasing levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

At one point they say more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase growth rates for plants. What they fail to mention is that weeds, allergens and invasive species are among the plants that may grow faster with elevated levels of carbon dioxide. Overall, the minor benefit for some plants pales in comparison to the major disruptions climate change could bring to agricultural crops, forests, and natural ecosystems, as well as human society.

Whether intended or not, this is the same tactic that the oil and coal-friendly group, CO2 is Green, has adopted. It's also reminiscent of the tobacco industry's claims that "smoking is good for you." In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency has labeled carbon dioxide a pollutant because too much of the gas is changing our climate and setting in motion a series of changes that will have serious consequences around the world.

The authors also brush off the critical role carbon dioxide will play in determining our future climate when they criticize climate models for projecting what they say is too large a range for future temperatures -- between two and 10 degrees F above today's levels. But what they fail to mention is such projections depend almost entirely on how much more heat-trapping emissions go into the atmosphere. Models project that a decrease in production of heat-trapping emissions would lead to less warming -- around two degrees F by the end of the century -- while continued high emissions would lead to greater warming -- closer to 10 degrees F.

A two degree shift is dangerous but tolerable. Ten degrees would be catastrophic. Nevertheless, Levitt and Dubner say, we should abandon efforts to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

These are just a couple of the many contrarian claims repeated in SuperFreakonomics.

Technical Fixes

Levitt and Dubner advocate the advantages of unproven technological solutions such as putting reflective particles into the atmosphere to bounce away sunlight and cool the Earth. When you ask scientists about so-called "geoengineering" solutions they will tell you that we have no idea if it will work, that it might backfire and that even if we could do it, that it would be no excuse for failing to reduce the heat-trapping emissions that cause global warming now. It's worth noting that scientist Ken Caldeira says the authors misrepresent his views on geoengineering in their book. He does not support geoengineering to the exclusion of reducing emissions as the authors imply. Instead, he says we need to reduce excess carbon dioxide emissions to zero.

The authors appear to have taken a purposefully contrarian position on climate change science and economics. The scientific myths that Levitt and Dubner highlight will likely continue to persist in circles of people opposed to reducing emissions. It is far easier to believe there's no need to do anything about a problem if one believes the problem does not exist.

But science doesn't work that way. According to the United States' leading federal and academic scientists -- as well as the peer-reviewed scientific literature -- global warming is happening, it's hurting us now and the degree to which it will affect our children and grandchildren depends on the choices we make about how we use energy today.

While it's tempting to believe geoengineering may solve our problems, we need to work now to address climate change.

Luckily, the House of Representatives did pass legislation that would dramatically reduce heat-trapping emissions and momentum is building for the Senate to do the same. If all goes well, world leaders who meet in December's climate change negotiations in Copenhagen will produce an effective international treaty to address climate change.

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A recent Facebook exchange was striking. Someone posted a Washington Post article on the latest climate science. It predicted a temperature rise of 8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century if no systemic changes are made to reduce our carbon output. The better case scenario -- in which world governments implement their current promises to cut emissions -- would keep the warming to only 6 degrees.

Another person responded, "This is so heartbreaking I don't know how I can hold it."

An increasing number of people note with horror the destruction caused by the current level of carbon in the atmosphere, which has caused the earth to warm by just over 1 degree. Compared to a decade ago, when I first learned of the gravity of climate change, there has been an enormous upswell of fear, concern, and protest.

Flat denial of the problem has decreased significantly, and this is heartening.  The vigor of the climate activist community has impressed me, and I no longer feel that I am holding this alone. But there is a persistence of denial at all levels.  Many educated, politically active people I meet do not follow the climate science closely enough to realize how dire our situation really is.

I constantly give people my elevator speech on the math: "350 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is considered the maximum safe level for the planet to continue to support life as we know it. We are currently at 389, and our carbon output raises that number by 2ppm/year." I was raised by scientists, and for me this is the only thing that matters: the well-established, peer-reviewed validity of those numbers, and their implications. But I often get a dismissive or blank response. Looking at the statements of the major environmental groups is no more reassuring. Committed to pushing for "realistic" policy changes, they willfully deny the warnings of the earth.

"I don't know how I can hold it."

We cannot hold it alone. We face a real threat of total destruction of our species (along with most of the others). It would be foolish to consider this irrelevant to our mental health, especially when we know that it is already so taxed by the haste and stress and violence of our culture. I do not think that the rise in the use of anti-anxiety meds and antidepressants can be unrelated to the climate crisis. We know in our bones, in our collective unconscious--in some deep way--that we are destroying the earth, and with it, ourselves.

The skies may be blue, but a storm is coming -- get help while you can.rick via flickrMy own investigations of personal psychotherapy to help with this grief, along with many anecdotal reports from friends and fellow activists, has convinced me that traditional one-on-one therapy does not help us to "hold" this tragedy. Focused on enabling the individual to function in the world, it fails to recognize the illness of the culture. One can easily feel blamed for "obsessing" about things too large to change, or be accused of overdramatizing, or diagnosed with manic disorders or depression. The diagnosis that addresses the individual as being separate from the world is of no use at all.

Part of our intention for the JP Green House is to create a community space for events, workshops, songfests, book groups, potlucks--what have you--that relate to sustainability and climate change. Putting forth that intention has had the always-mysterious effect of leading me to the right people to work with. If you are craving a community of support for your grief, fear, and anger at the destruction of the planet, for your fears about yourselves and your children, I can offer a few ideas here.

Common Security Clubs: First, a model I helped create! Common Security Clubs are a growing movement of small gatherings around the country that function to educate, support, and encourage action in the face of the economic meltdown. While the focus of the 5-session curriculum is mostly on the economic crisis, good connections are made to the environmental situation, and one of the premises of the materials is to gently teach participants that we are not going back to a growth-based economy. I have both led and participated in these groups, and can attest to their effectiveness, and to the intimacy they provoke as people share their lives with each other. The curriculum is free and available to all at CommonSecurityClub.org.

Earth Circles: Although I know less about this model, it is also small-group work focused specifically on addressing the participants' fears about the future and climate change. An excellent free curriculum can be found at Earth-Circles.org.

Lastly, if you are fearful, despairing, agonizing over your children's future on this planet, I highly recommend a new book called Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind (edited by Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist). It was after reading this book that I knew what I had to do at the JP Green House: create space to air climate grief and rage. A collection of essays written by therapists and deep ecologists, it is full of wisdom about our collective diseases, elegant writing, and apt criticism of the field of psychology. I could quote it all day. Here is just one example, to wrap up, from eco-therapist Mary-Jane Rust:

"I felt as if I were a therapist on the Titanic. We might be doing fine work in the therapy room, but nobody was mentioning the sinking of the ship. If a client brought a dream of a ship in danger, would it not be strange to understand this only in terms of her inner world, and to ignore the dream's message warning of the danger to the outer world?"

The ship is sinking.  Can we save it, save ourselves? We do not know, and while we hold the question, we can only hold each other.

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Some of the MacArthur Foundation “genius award” winners are doing work related to climate change. And they now they each have $500 grand, no strings attached. Neat-o:

Also sorta related:

Much, much more info on the foundation’s site.

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Send your question to Umbra!

Q. Dear Umbra,

This "year with no summer" and some alleged statistics I have seen quoted about earth-wide temperatures for the last ten years have resulted in claims that the earth is not heating -- it may even be cooling. What about it?

Arthur Waskow
Shalom Center, Philadelphia

A. Dearest Arthur,

The oceans are too getting warmer!That would be great. The planet needs some cooling, and humans certainly aren't doing anything to help. But let us remember the difference between weather and climate.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration does confirm that summer 2009 in the contiguous U.S. was 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit below the 20th Century average of 72.1 degrees. We notice no concomitant change in policy from the U.S. Global Change Research Program, or any other reputable source, so we must conclude that a cool summer was only weather, and that in general the overall climate remains on track for warming.

After all, the last decades have included the hottest years on record, when you look at ocean and surface temperatures. Last year was the eighth-warmest on record; full stats are not yet in on 2009, of course, but already we know that the world's oceans set a heat record in July. All this does not seem to indicate ten years worth of cooling temperatures.

As our country pushes further toward actually having an organized response to climate change, it's important for us all to be as informed as we can be, and to be ready to respond to those who are dubious about the need for action. Or who write whatever weird stuff you've been reading about cooling temperatures.

I have given out some resources before, and Grist as a whole is a good resource for tracking climate action in senate chambers, chat rooms, and other tangible and intangible locations. But today I'd like to be sure our browser bookmarks contain lists with some helpful easy-to-read FAQ compilations. These are for use when confused by news stories or "deniers," and are mostly organized by the issues deniers raise.

I'll just give a few. There's Grist's own "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic" series. There's Real Climate's Start Here page as well as their index, and my beloved Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate FAQ list. Britain's Natural Environment Research Council also has a nice summary of an open session it held a few years ago, organized by debate points.

I hope those will help with the confusing moments.

Cheerfully,
Umbra

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The climate science deniers' favorite myths are about cooling. They have cooling myths about the past -- see "Killing the myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus." They have cooling myths about the present (asserting that we've been cooling since 1998) -- see "Very warm 2008 makes this the hottest decade in recorded history by far." And they claim that recent studies predict future cooling.

In regards the last claim, a favorite new study is "Has the climate recently shifted?" (Swanson and Tsonis, 2009). I have previously noted how absurd it is for deniers to cite that study - see New study quoted by Cato Institute deniers concludes "warming over the 21st century may well be larger than that predicted by the current generation of models."

Now RealClimate has published a long post by Swanson, "Warming, interrupted: Much ado about natural variability." Swanson says that we're NOT cooling, that he never predicted we will start cooling, but that we are in for about a decade of not much warming.

That view requires believing 1) something very unusual happened in the past decade and 2) global warming is linear. Now the second assumption has no basis in climate science, a conclusion so obvious that I'm certain RealClimate agrees. Before addressing that myth, here is what Swanson says on the first point:

Everything hinges on the idea that something extraordinary happened to the climate system in response to the 1997/98 super-El Niño event (an idea that has its roots in the wavelet analysis by Park and Mann (2000). The figure [above] shows the spatial mean temperature over all grid boxes in the HadCRUT3 data set that have continuous monthly coverage over the 1901-2008 period. While this provides a skewed view of the global mean, as it is heavily weighted toward North America, Europe and coastal areas, unlike the global mean temperature it has the cardinal virtue of being a consistent record with respect to time. The sole exclusion in the figure is the line connecting the 1997 and 1998 temperatures.

It may well be that something unusual did happen, since something unusual seems to have happened in upper ocean warming:

Remember that figure is how Pielke Sr. justifies saying, "upper ocean warming has halted since 2003," when one could say just as easily - and more accurately from a climatology perspective, which looks at longer term trends - "upper ocean warming has soared since 2002" (see "Roger Pielke Sr. also doesn't understand the science of global warming - or just chooses to willfully misrepresent it")

But Swanson's conclusion that we will see another decade of flat temperatures is based on a very erroneous assumption. Swanson writes:

What we find is that when interannual modes of variability in the climate system have what I'll refer to as an "episode," shifts in the multi-decadal global mean temperature trend appear to occur....

The contentious part of our paper is that the climate system appears to have had another "episode" around the turn of the 21st century, coinciding with the much discussed "halt" in global warming. Whether or not such a halt has really occurred is of course controversial (it appears quite marked in the HadCRUT3 data, less so in GISTEMP); only time will tell if it's real. Regardless, it's important to note that we are not talking about global cooling, just a pause in warming.

What's our perspective on how the climate will behave in the near future? The HadCRUT3 global mean temperature [below] shows the post-1980 warming, along with the "plateau" in global mean temperature post-1998. Also shown is a linear trend using temperatures over the period 1979-1997 (no cherry picking here; pick any trend that doesn't include the period 1998-2008). We hypothesize that the established pre-1998 trend is the true forced warming signal, and that the climate system effectively overshot this signal in response to the 1997/98 El Niño. This overshoot is in the process of radiatively dissipating, and the climate will return to its earlier defined, greenhouse gas-forced warming signal. If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020. Of course, this contrasts sharply with other forecasts of the climate system; the purple line roughly indicates the model-based forecast of Smith et al. (2007), suggesting a warming of roughly 0.3 deg C over the 2005-2015 period.

Before getting to the nonsense of linear warming the above figure depicts, let me first note that while Swanson uses the Hadley Center's data, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies data is almost certainly superior (see "What exactly is polar amplification and why does it matter?"). Remember, "there are no permanent weather stations in the Arctic Ocean, the place on Earth that has been warming fastest," as New Scientist explained (see here and here). "The UK's Hadley Centre record simply excludes this area, whereas the NASA version assumes its surface temperature is the same as that of the nearest land-based stations." Thus contrary to what the global warming deniers say about the recent temperature record, it is almost certainly the case that the planet has warmed up more this decade than NASA says, and especially more than the UK's Hadley Center says.

So that's why I see the NASA temperature record as more accurate, which puts 2005 as the warmest year on record, with a rough tie for second between 2007 and 1998. And of course that kills about half of Swanson's theory, since it means there is little evidence we hit a plateau 10 years ago.

But what really kills his theory is the straight-line warming trend he draws from 1950 to 2030 of about 0.1°C per decade. That has no basis in climate science. As atmospheric concentrations rise, the rate of warming increases. That, of course, is how Hadley itself (!) gets total warming of 5.5°C or more by 2100, the vast majority of which occurs this century (see "Hadley Center: "Catastrophic" 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path").

Here, for instance, is a Hadley scenario for 980 ppm and 5.5°C warming from preindustrial levels from a 2003 Geophysical Research Letters (subs. req'd) paper, "Strong carbon cycle feedbacks in a climate model with interactive CO2 and sulphate aerosols."

Not exactly linear from 1950 to 2030 and beyond.

It is just plain odd for Swanson to base his analysis on Hadley temperature data, but then ignore Hadley's own analysis of how temperature is likely to rise this century on the business-as-usual emissions path.

In fact, "Smith et al, 2007,″ which Swanson plots in his figure, is a Hadley (!) paper from Science: "Improved Surface Temperature Prediction for the Coming Decade from a Global Climate Model" (see "Climate Forecast: Hot - and then Very Hot"), which concluded:

Our system predicts that internal variability will partially offset the anthropogenic global warming signal for the next few years. However, climate will continue to warm, with at least half of the years after 2009 predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record.

I'm liking that prediction more and more (see NOAA says "El Niño arrives; Expected to Persist through Winter 2009-10″ - and that means record temperatures are coming and this will be the hottest decade on record). Here's what Hadley thinks will happen:

So, cheers to RealClimate for letting Swanson kill the myth that his paper predicts global cooling, but jeers for letting Swanson push the notion of linear warming.

And I'll be happy to take a bet with anybody on RealClimate (or with Swanson) that Hadley is right that "at least half of the years [in the decade] after 2009 will exceed the warmest year currently on record."

UPDATE: Tamino has a good post on this here:

I have two overriding opinions of this work. My first overall opinion is that I don't believe it's correct, for several reasons.... Also, the hypothesis uses certain aspects of the HadCRU temperature time series which aren't shared by the GISS or NCDC time series, so at least in part it's dependent on the use of a particular data set.

The paper also uses linear trend rates over 7-year intervals to suggest that the most recent lower trend rate (the suggested "plateau") may indeed match the criteria for a "state change" of the climate, because it doesn't coincide with a known cause (la Niña or a volcanic explosion).....

I'm especially skeptical of the suggestion that we may be beginning an extended "plateau" of temperature change. Using GISS data, the observed variations in trend rate since 1975 (on 7-year or longer time scales) really are statistically indistinguishable from random noise, and the residuals from a straight line fit 1975-present are likewise indistinguishable from noise. Of this I'm sure: although it's certainly possible that the climate has recently "shifted," as yet there's no sound statistical evidence to confirm it (nor does the paper, or the RealClimate post, claim such evidence)....

Furthermore, the trend on which they base their projection is from 1979 to 1997 (centered on 1988), which is one of the lowest 18-year trend rates in the recent GISS record. Both earlier and later time spans of the same length indicate greater warming, in particular the time span 1974 to 1992 gives a linear regression trend rate over 0.02 deg.C/yr....

Tamino provides a good figure on this.

Bottom Line: Swanson would appear to have cherry picked a very low trend rate - from 1979 to 1997 - and assumed that is a linear trend that will continue through 2020 (to 2030), in the third figure above (that I reposted from RealClimate). That is the only way he can come to the conclusion that we will see little or no warming over the next decade. That also requires ignoring the off-trend-line data since 1997 and explaining it away as an anomaly, which, again, there is little basis for doing. Finally, it requires ignoring other data (like NASA GISS), but then at the same time ignoring Hadley's analysis of projected temps over the next two decades.

Whether Tamino is right that Swanson's paper is important, only time will tell. But the RealClimate post is analytically very weak and based on an incredibly dubious set of assumptions.

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UPDATE:  Predictably, Swift Boat smearer Morano has made Hansen's post his top story at ClimateDepotted, again revealing that Hansen's recent attacks are helping the deniers and delayers.

Much as I am happy to devote many Climate Progress posts to publicizing Hansen's leading edge climate science analysis (see links below), I am unhappy to have to waste any time at all debunking his bleeding edge climate policy analysis (see "Memo to Hansen: Your opposition to Waxman-Markey is ill-conceived and unhelpful. There isn't going to be a carbon tax nor should there be. Get over it and move on" and "Memo to Hansen 2: Why is the country's top anti-science blog reprinting your stuff?").

Still, his arguments need debunking because he is mostly recycling myths that others are pushing - and with the country's top climate scientist putting his name on this collection of false and misleading statements, they will no doubt be parroted by yet more people.  Hansen has just written, "G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change" for The Huffington Post.

Let me go straight to his needlessly (and pointlessly) provocative attacks on the "counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey," which is filled with right-wing and left-wing myths - and very little understanding of the basics of either this bill or cap-and-trade systems.

Hansen claims "For all its ‘green' aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like ‘cap-and-trade' scheme."  Not so.  I have previously explained why W-M takes us sharply off of the BAU emissions path over the next decade, probably reducing coal use more than 25% by 2020 (see "Game changer, Part 2: Why unconventional natural gas makes the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet").  And then it requires a 42% emissions reduction by 2030 and an 83% reduction by 2050, which will drive a massive energy transition over the next few decades.

The global economy is indeed a Ponzi scheme, but this is the first piece of legislation by any major country that makes a serious effort to end that Ponzi scheme.

Hansen then lists "a few of the bill's egregious flaws":

No.  The EPA doesn't have the "ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants."  EPA might well use its recent endangerment finding to get that ability [partially and eventually], but it hasn't asserted that regulatory capability yet.

More importantly, the CAA authority is most readily translated into regulating emissions from new power plants.  Regulating CO2 emissions from existing power plants would take a long time, engendering a great deal of litigation.  As John Podesta, former Clinton Administration Chief of Staff and now CEO of CAP, recently said, "it would be difficult for the EPA to enact a CO2 cap and trade without congressional cooperation."

Moreover, for a man who wants to "phase out coal emissions over the next two decades," as Hansen does, this is a pretty pointless complaint.  The Obama EPA was certainly never going to use the endangerment finding to do anything like that.

This "EPA can solve the problem on its own" myth is so commonplace that I will do separate post next week addressing it.  I certainly agree with NRDC that the bill should be changed to allow EPA to retain its CAA authority, but I wouldn't list this among the bill's top 4 flaws, let alone put it first.

Hansen's next "egregious" flaw in W-M:

Not quite - though the first part this statement is the bill's biggest flaw (and the only truly serious objection Hansen raises here).  The 2020 target is inarguably too weak from a scientific perspective (although using this deep-recession/near-depresssion year as the baseline and not the bill's 2005 base year is a critique that should be beneath Hansen).  That unfortunate outcome came about principally because the Bush administration did nothing for eight years, which meant that any U.S. climate bill passed now that starts in 2012 was never going to have a 2020 target like Hansen (and developing countries) wanted, which would have required the equivalent of a 40% cut in 8 years.  I guess Hansen and others can trash the Obama administration and leading environmental legislators like Waxman and Markey for that, but I see that as worse than pointless.

[Note to Hansen:  Congress was never going to pass a carbon tax that would "phase out coal emissions over the next two decades."  You can pretend it was -- and vent your misplaced wrath at cap-and-trade proponents -- but even if a carbon tax could pass Congress, it would ultimately be little different from W-M in its outcomes, and would lack the targets needed to move the international negotiations process forward.]

And it is really quite out of character for Hansen to make such a factually untrue assertion as

and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand.

Of the more than 1000 Clean Development Mechanism projects funded and sold to date as international offsets (CERs) under the Kyoto process, 3 have been forestry.  Hansen has repeated an absurd and rather destructive myth, which will no doubt resonate around the blogosphere.

Why destructive?  Because one of the single best things in the entire W-M bill is that utterly separate from the offset provisions, it sets aside allowances to create a huge pool of money for the United States to contribute to a new international effort to stop deforestation using national-accounting based methods - a strategy explicitly designed to stop the very problem Hansen (falsely) claims the bill will accelerate.  Indeed, the funding in W-M is so great that the United States contribution alone is aimed at stopping deforestation equal to some 720 million metric tons of carbon dioxide - equal to 10% of U.S. emissions in 2005 - which is on top of the emissions reductions mandated by the bill.

Finally, the offsets complaint is a bit odd in a piece whose basic thesis is that the first-ever attempt by the United States to take climate action - which includes a requirement that this country cut greenhouse gas emissions 42% in two decades and 83% in four decades - is the entire reason for the failure of rich and poor countries to agree on an emissions pathway this week.  Hansen writes

With a workable climate bill in his pocket, President Obama might have been able to begin building that global consensus in Italy. Instead, it looks as if the delegates from other nations may have done what 219 U.S. House members who voted up Waxman-Markey last month did not: critically read the 1,400-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and deduce that it's no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon.

That, of course, is poppycock.  The delegates haven't read the bill, and they certainly only care about the targets.  They could care less about the other 1300 pages of the bill that so bother Hansen (which he hasn't bothered to read, or even read a summary of, as we'll see).  Yes, the 2020 target is too weak, but that is true of Japan's new 2020 target - and frankly even Europe's proposed target wouldn't satisfy what many developing countries have asked for.

More to the point here, the Kyoto process created international offsets, and the Europeans are committed to keeping them (and improving quality and oversight). Whatever complaints the developing countries have about Waxman-Markey, the fact that it makes use of international offsets is not high on their list.  In fact, they want a mechanism by which rich polluters help them develop with clean energy.

I am not a big fan of offsets, but after much research and discussion with leading experts, I've come to the conclusion that they do not vitiate the targets (see "Do the 2 billion offsets allowed in Waxman-Markey gut the emissions targets?").  The bill is written in a manner that should allow the United States to strengthen oversight of international offsets, but in any case, it is difficult to blame the United States for the current state of the CDM.  And again, what the bill does on global forest preservation is not an "egregious flaw" but a central contribution to stopping global warming.

Hansen's third "egregious" flaw:

Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."

This is an utter falsehood.  Indeed, it is a repackaged version of a falsehood that anti-scientific anti-clean-energy Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour put forward (see "Barbour utterly tries to scare public with wildly implausible Chinese scheme to manipulate the emissions market").  So let me repeat for the record:

There are many provisions (and realities) that would stop "insider trading" [whatever the heck that is in this case] and "a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives."

First off, the permit market is huge.  Even purchasing 2% of the permits in, say, 2015, would probably cost $1 billion.  And speculators would have to purchase several times that to significantly run up the price.

[As an aside, Hansen should really like speculators because they increase the price of the permit]

Second, it will be so easy to meet the targets for at least the first decade (see here) that the "real" price of a permit will probably be slightly below the auction price (which has a floor).  So it will be highly unprofitable to buy lots of permits, which would run up the price, in an effort to make money selling those permits sometime in the future.  I can't imagine a plausible scenario in which this would make economic sense for any entity even if they could get away with it, which they cannot.

Third, the bill requires EPA to promulgate regulations to cover the auction.  As CQ's summary of the bill explains:

So it would be very difficult to do any major purchasing in secret, any major "insider trading," and virtually impossible to acquire a large fraction of the permits.  Indeed, in this context, "insider trading" looks to be just a collection of meaningless scare-words.  Hansen can do better.

Fourth, the bill has a whole section devoted to "Carbon Market Assurance."  As the WRI summary describes it:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is given regulatory authority over allowance and offset markets and allowance derivative markets (Sec. 761, pg. 449). The President is also delegated authority to instruct agencies to take on pieces of market regulation based on existing authority as long as regulations are consistent with this section. The draft makes it a federal crime to commit fraud or manipulate any carbon market. In addition, the regulations facilitate and maintain market oversight and transparency and require market monitoring to prevent fraud, manipulation and excessive speculation.

That section explicitly includes derivatives, with further oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Fifth, the bill has a Strategic Reserve (with tons originally skimmed off from each year's total target) that an entity can purchase permits from if the price sees a short-term run up of about 60%.  So again the bill will is designed to prevent someone from cornering the market.

So this charge by Shapiro and Hansen is utterly false.  Now Hansen apparently hasn't bothered to look at the bill or any of the many summaries.  I would note that essentially all of these oversight provisions were in the original March draft - so they should not be a surprise to anybody.

Since Hansen really doesn't follow this sort of policy issue closely - even though he opines on it - I can understand why he might just parrot Shapiro.  But Shapiro is, as Hansen notes, former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs and co-chair of the U.S. Climate Task Force.  So he should know better.  Then again, one of the two (!) advisors listed for the U.S. Climate Task Force is "Kevin Hassett, Director of Economic Studies for the American Enterprise Institute."

Now AEI remains a leading anti-climate-action, anti-clean energy right wing think tank.  For instance, AEI continues to assert (without any supporting evidence), "No matter what you've been told, the technology to significantly reduce emissions is decades away and extremely costly," and it continues to parrot utterly false denier talking points like "For the last decade, warming peaked, and has recently declined: we're back to the average temperatures that prevailed in 1978″ (see "AEI: Still crazy with denial and delay after all these years").  I simply can't imagine any group that wants to be taken seriously on climate policy having a senior AEI staffer as an advisor.  So for now, the analysis of "The U.S. Climate Task Force" and its leadership should be ignored by anyone who wants to be taken seriously on climate policy.

But Hansen isn't content to quote Shapiro's falsehoods once.  No, his fourth and last egregious flaw is:

It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short.

Uhh, no.  In fact, the bill does set a very predictable (and rising) floor on the auction price.  And again, since the 2020 target is so easy to meet with abundant, low-cost domestic clean energy - like efficiency, conservation, renewables, and fuel switching from coal to gas - I think the carbon price is likely to hug the floor price through 2020.  But that's what I think - not what the industry believes.

Hansen has this argument exactly backwards.  One of the biggest plusses of a cap-and-trade over a tax is that participants tend to think that the cost of meeting the targets - and hence the cost of the permits - will be much higher than they actually turn out to be.  So they do more than is necessary, especially once they find out how easy it is to cut emissions. That is why in previous cap-and-trade programs, like sulfur dioxide, the targets were achieve faster and cheaper than anybody expected.

Remember the industry-funded economic models show very high permit prices.  That's why the industry ends up acting as if the permit price is going to be high.  I already know medium-sized energy-intensive companies that have done bupkes on energy for decades who are now scrambling to figure out what this bill means for them.  They will inevitably put in place basic energy efficiency and carbon mitigation strategies of the kind that I detail in my book Cool Companies (see "Cool Companies, Part 1: How the best businesses boost profits and productivity by reducing greenhouse gas emissions" and "The United States of Waste").  That will be repeated by hundreds of different companies, ultimately leading to far more emissions reductions at a far lower cost than all the economic models project.

So it is sheer nonsense - and the exact opposite of the truth - for Hansen and Shapiro to claim this bill will ensure "that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short."

Yes, those who like carbon taxes think that predictable prices are preferable.  But I'm with Nobelist Krugman, who writes, "The claim that carbon taxes are better than cap and trade is, in my view, just wrong."  In particular:

One objection - the claim that carbon taxes are better than cap and trade - is, in my view, just wrong. In principle, emission taxes and tradable emission permits are equally effective at limiting pollution. In practice, cap and trade has some major advantages, especially for achieving effective international cooperation.

Not to put too fine a point on it, think about how hard it would be to verify whether China was really implementing a promise to tax carbon emissions, as opposed to letting factory owners with the right connections off the hook. By contrast, it would be fairly easy to determine whether China was holding its total emissions below agreed-upon levels.

Now Hansen can keep pointlessly pushing his carbon tax if he wants to.  Heck, he can argue the merits of Betamax and John McCain and Adam Lambert, if he wants.  But trashing Waxman-Markey and its supporters based on recycled myths touted by others remains ill-conceived and unhelpful.

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A group of 20 U.S. climate scientists and experts sent an open letter to President Obama and members of Congress on Monday calling for aggressive action on climate change.

The scientists say that the American Clean Energy and Security Act under discussion in the House marks a "powerful advance and must be enacted this year," but they are clear that it should just be the first of many steps. The bill as it stands does not go far enough in addressing the action that the science dictates is needed to avert climatic disruption, they argue. They also call on Obama to step up and call for the strongest legislation possible.

Here's their letter:

The letter was initiated by four of the signees: Speth, Houghton, Schlesinger, and Woodwell, according to a release from the Woods Hole Research Center.

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Sven Huseby and his grandson Elias during production of the film A Sea Change.Photo: Daniel de La Calle

If you've ever doubted the power of the printed word, strike up a conversation with one Sven Huseby, whose entire life was changed by one article in the New Yorker.

The retired history teacher found himself one day reading Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Darkening Sea" and the next traveling all over the world in search of answers about ocean acidification -- with a documentary film crew tailing him all the way. The result is A Sea Change, a film about the largely underreported effects of excess carbon dioxide on the chemistry of our sensitive seas.

One reviewer has called it a "global warming horror documentary." And there is certainly plenty to fear as Huseby -- and the audience -- learns more and more about the threat of ocean acidification. He interviews scientists who tell him 118 billion metric tons (or 118 billion VW Bugs worth) of CO2 have already been absorbed by the ocean. He watches the enamel of a human tooth quickly dissolve after sitting in a cupful of carbonated water. He listens during a conference where scientists ask each other how they missed this big issue -- and whether we're already screwed (answer: probably).

Huseby and his trusty sidekick.Photo: Daniel de La CalleBut despite all this, A Sea Change emerges as more love story than horror flick. For one, the film is centered around Huseby's relationship with his (almost unbearably adorable) grandson, Elias, who serves as both sidekick-style comic relief and helpful narrative device as Huseby reports on the progress of his quest. The gap-toothed five-year-old is incredibly precocious and knowledgeable about the ocean environment ("no, it's a lungfish!" he says, pointing to a drawing he's made in the sand) -- perhaps it's an inherited trait.

A competing love story also develops as Huseby begins to learn about pteropods, a type of planktonic snail about the size of a lentil. They're known as "sea butterflies" because of the wing-like appendages that help propel them through the water, but the name is also apt to describe their frailty: the organism's thin, colorless shell disintegrates with the dip in pH associated with excess CO2.

They play a starring role in Kolbert's article and consequently become a sort of mild obsession for Huseby, who's shown Googling image after image of the transparent sea creature and cooing when he sees them alive for the first time in a lab. He's even planning to produce a children's book about them. But Huseby's crush isn't unwarranted: The humble pteropod serves as food for a large variety of fish who become meals for larger fish as well as birds and mammals (and us!), making them vital to the marine food chain.

A pteropod.Photo: NOAAThe pteropod isn't the only organism that will be affected by the increasing acidity of the ocean, though. Anything with a calcium carbonate-based skeleton or shell will have trouble making and maintaining those structures; these include corals, crustaceans like crabs, shrimp, and lobsters, and shellfish like oysters, clams, and mussels.

So what do we do about all this? Huseby goes there too -- or rather he goes to Norway and to Silicon Valley and other places around the world where exciting advancements are being made in solar, wind, and geothermal energy generation. He talks to the entrepreneurs and investors who are putting wind in the sails of a carbon-free energy economy. He walks on the beach with a young environmental lawyer who helped in the court cases that led to the EPA's determination that CO2 is a pollutant and should be regulated.

These scenes provide hope for what Huseby calls "our entrepreneurial opportunity, our chance to explore what's possible." And the conversations he had -- and continues to have -- with folks making bold moves in the right direction helped lift him out of the depressive state he appears to be in during some portions of the film.

And it's a good thing, too, because Huseby is more energized than ever in his quest to publicize the dual threats of ocean acidification and global warming. During a panel discussion following a Seattle International Film Festival screening, Huseby announced that he'll be attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December and will be showing the film there. He's also planning screenings for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a UN delegation. He's even been asked to testify on the topic in front of Congress.

"We have a 10-15 year window to make some noise," he said. "I would love to see the term 'ocean acidification' become part of the political discourse."

And thanks to this film -- and Huseby's love of the ocean -- it just might.

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Hurricane season officially begins tomorrow.  So I’m updating one more 2008 post on the science.  Last September, Nature published a major analysis that supports my 2-parter (Why global warming means killer storms worse than Katrina and Gustav, Part 1 and Part 2).  As Nature explained:

… scientists have come up with the firmest evidence so far that global warming will significantly increase the intensity of the most extreme storms worldwide.

The maximum wind speeds of the strongest tropical cyclones have increased significantly since 1981, according to research published in Nature this week. And the upward trend, thought to be driven by rising ocean temperatures, is unlikely to stop at any time soon.

The team statistically analysed satellite-derived data of cyclone wind speeds. Although there was hardly any increase in the average number or intensity of all storms, the team found a significant shift in distribution towards stronger storms that wreak the greatest havoc. This meant that, overall, there were more storms with a maximum wind speed exceeding 210 kilometres per hour (category 4 and 5 storms on the Saffir–Simpson scale)….

“It’ll be pretty hard now for anyone to claim that cyclone activity has not increased,” says Judith Curry, an atmospheric researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, who was not involved in the study….

“People should now stop saying ‘who cares, storm activity is just a few per cent up’,” says Curry. “It’s the strongest storms that matter most.”

Curry is I think one of the sharpest experts on this subject.  I’m hoping to interview her soon myself.  I would note that she is not just “an atmospheric researcher” at Georgia Tech, but, since 2002, she’s Chair of their School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Again, “More than half the total hurricane damage in the U.S. (normalized for inflation and populations trends) was caused by just five events,” explained MIT hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel in an email. Storms that are Category 4 and 5 at landfall (or just before) are what destroy major cities like New Orleans and Galveston with devastating winds, rains, and storm surges.

The impacts projected for coming decades are quite ominous in a world that currently refuses to take serious action on climate:

Rising ocean temperatures are thought to be the main cause of the observed shift. The team calculates that a 1 ºC increase in sea-surface temperatures would result in a 31% increase in the global frequency of category 4 and 5 storms per year: from 13 of those storms to 17. Since 1970, the tropical oceans have warmed on average by around 0.5 ºC. Computer models suggest they may warm by a further 2 ºC by 2100.

Those would be the already out-of-date-emissions models.  Actually, if we don’t sharply reverse our current emissions path soon, SSTs are likely to rise far more than 2°C by 2100 — since the whole planet faces a 5°C warming by then (see “Intro to global warming impacts: Hell and High Water”). Indeed, we could easily see a 1°C increase in SSTs by 2050, and that means four more potential city-destroying super-hurricanes per year by mid-century.

And the situation is probably worse in the North tropical Atlantic.  As I discussed here, in one model, the average warming in the Gulf, Caribbean, and coastal Atlantic is 1°C to 2°C, with an enormous body of very warm water 2°C to 3°C over much of the typical storm path for a hurricane like Katrina or Gustav.  And a new article in Science, “The Role of Aerosols in the Evolution of Tropical North Atlantic Ocean Temperature Anomalies” (subs. req’d), concludes:

Over the past 30 years, temperatures in other tropical ocean basins have been rising steadily, but at a slower rate than in the Atlantic. At the same time, projections of surface temperature increases under a doubled carbon dioxide climate suggest that the Atlantic should be warming at a rate slower than the other observations. We suggest that this apparent disconnect between observations and models may be due to the influence of Atlantic dust cover. Our results imply that because dust plays a role in modulating tropical North Atlantic temperature, projections of these temperatures under various global warming scenarios by general circulation models should account for long-term changes in dust loadings. This is especially critical because studies have estimated a reduction in Atlantic dust cover of 40 to 60% under a doubled carbon dioxide climate, which, on the basis of model runs with an equivalent reduction of the mean dust forcing, could result in an additional 0.3° to 0.4°C warming of the northern tropical Atlantic.

In short, the North Atlantic hurricane-forming region is on track to get much warmer in the coming decades.

Here is the abstract of the September Nature study, “The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones” (subs. req’d):

Atlantic tropical cyclones are getting stronger on average, with a 30-year trend that has been related to an increase in ocean temperatures over the Atlantic Ocean and elsewhere. Over the rest of the tropics, however, possible trends in tropical cyclone intensity are less obvious, owing to the unreliability and incompleteness of the observational record and to a restricted focus, in previous trend analyses, on changes in average intensity. Here we overcome these two limitations by examining trends in the upper quantiles of per-cyclone maximum wind speeds (that is, the maximum intensities that cyclones achieve during their lifetimes), estimated from homogeneous data derived from an archive of satellite records. We find significant upward trends for wind speed quantiles above the 70th percentile, with trends as high as 0.3 ± 0.09 m s-1 yr-1 (s.e.) for the strongest cyclones. We note separate upward trends in the estimated lifetime-maximum wind speeds of the very strongest tropical cyclones (99th percentile) over each ocean basin, with the largest increase at this quantile occurring over the North Atlantic [Note to self: You are here!], although not all basins show statistically significant increases. Our results are qualitatively consistent with the hypothesis that as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy to convert to tropical cyclone wind.

What does this all mean for America? As previously noted, we are stuck with a fair amount of warming over the next few decades no matter what we do. But if we don’t sharply reverse emissions trends very soon, then Category 4 and 5 storms smashing into the Gulf coast — and Southeast coast — seem likely to become rather common in the second half of this century if not sooner. And that will be a doubly untenable situation because by then we will probably also be facing sea level rise of a few inches a decade or more.

Preserving the habitability of the Gulf and South Atlantic Coast post-2050 means the time to act on climate change is now.

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E&E ran a story yesterday on House committee maneuvering in the debate over Waxman-Markey. Some committees plan to waive jurisdiction, some plan to kick up dust (especially Agriculture's Collin Peterson).

On Science, there was only this:

House Science and Technology Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) said yesterday he plans to complete work on the Waxman-Markey legislation's adaptation provisions after the Memorial Day recess. Gordon's committee will mark up H.R. 2407 (PDF), which would establish a National Climate Service at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on June 3.

"We've been working together," said Gordon, who is also a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. "We've got a good relationship."

How chummy! They're going to work away on new branch of NOAA.

Is that it? Shouldn't part of the role of the Science committee be to insure that science is accurately represented in debates over legislation? House Energy Committee hearings were rife with arguments by conservatives that the problem motivating the legislation doesn't exist. At the very least, the Science committee should speak up for the integrity of science and the goal of science-based legislating.

It's frequently said that there's a chasm between what's needed and what's politically possible. Part of the problem is that what's politically possible has a large voice in Congress while what's really needed has virtually none -- future generations are underrepresented (not to mention the planet's flora and fauna). As the voice for science, the Science Committee could at least put their needs on record.

Of course, if you're going to put Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) and Dana Rohrabacher (R-California) on your science committee, you probably aren't going to be a stickler for empirical rigor.

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To study the conditions of sea ice, one must walk very carefully across it. Here, two members of the Catlin Arctic Survey team maneuver a supply sled through a rough patch.Courtesy Catlin Arctic Survey

To millions around the world, Pen Hadow -- the first person ever to trek to the North Pole alone without any support -- is simply one of the most extraordinary people alive. To me, however, he is also the man who didn't come to dinner.

Let me explain. One day last year Pen arranged to come to our village for dinner with me and the local Member of Parliament who was also, at the time, the shadow minister of the environment. The MP and his wife, Peter and Claire Ainsworth, got ready to host him in their home, only to receive a message that he was physically unable to get there.

So my wife and I had a convivial evening alone with the Ainsworths, all of us much amused that the man who had unhesitatingly taken to his feet when a ski broke two thirds of the way to the Pole -- and who had frequently swum through freezing waters when they barred his way -- had been unable to make it through England's placid home counties.

To be fair, I seem to remember that there was a reason for his inability to show, and he did turn up for tea with us a few weeks later. Hadow then told us of an expedition he was trying to finance to measure the condition of the Arctic's ice. He was anxious to get the job done this year so that the results could be presented to December's vital climate change negotiations in Copenhagen.

It takes quite a lot to deter a man who once banged an attacking polar bear over the head with a saucepan ("The 'boing' on its skull freaked it out and made it run", he recalls.) Inevitably, Hadow pulled off the new expedition, with support from Prince Charles, the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations Environment Programme.

So, with his mission just completed, I rang him up at the weekend while he was recovering in Ottawa to ask out how it had gone. He described the task he and his equally intrepid companions -- fellow Brits Ann Daniels and Martin Hartley -- had just completed as being "hunter gatherers for information." And, indeed, the data they brought back is badly needed.

Satellite imagery shows that the extent of the polar ice cap is shrinking dramatically -- at a rate of about eleven percent a decade since 1979 (losing an area the size of Alaska in 2007 alone). But the thickness of the ice is also vitally important, and neither satellites nor submarines are very good at measuring it. The only real solution is to get out and do it on the ground, or rather on the ice, and that's a job for someone like Rupert Nigel Pendrill Hadow (to relay his full name).

Pen Hadow works the manual ice drill the team had to resort to after their ice-penetrating radar kit malfunctioned.Courtesy Catlin Arctic SurveyHe and his team set out from northern Canada in early March to walk 1,200 kilometers to the North Pole, dragging behind them an ice-penetrating radar kit that would measure its thickness every ten centimeters of the way. To their "huge frustration," the device failed to work for most of the way and they had to rely instead on boring holes in the ice and using an adapted tape measure.

The results were surprising. Hadow told me that he had been advised by some of the world's leading experts that their route would mainly take them over "multi-year" ice that had long been there, failing to melt in the summer. But as it happens, Hadow went on, only two of the team's 1,500 bore holes found multi-year ice. Virtually all the rest, at an average of 1.774 meters thick, turned out to be "first year ice" that had only frozen this past winter, and -- since the Arctic sea ice moves around -- had presumably drifted onto the line of their trek.

That, in itself, does not reveal a great deal about the thickness of the ice-cap. Indeed, what the measurements did show was slightly reassuring. For example, said Pen, "it was thicker than would be expected for first year ice at this stage of the season," suggesting that "this could be a recovery year" in the Arctic -- at least for the time being.

But it will have revealed valuable scientific data that will now be analyzed by Prof. Wieslaw Maslowski of the U.S. Naval Post Graduate School, one of the more pessimistic authorities on the Arctic ice.

Naturally, there were some narrow escapes for Hadow and team, most notably when they woke at 3:15 a.m. one morning to find the ice floe on which they had camped was beginning to break up. Somehow, with the aid of torches in the pitch dark, they managed to find the single two-foot wide spot where their floe abutted a neighboring one, allowing them to escape in time.

So perhaps it's not too much to hope that Hadow will manage to find his way back to our village to report back in full on his recent adventure After all, he has still to have that dinner.

--

Video: Pen Hadow discusses sea ice conditions during 2009 mission:

Video: NASA animation of sea-ice changes over the past three decades (via WWF YouTube channel):

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House Republicans are ramping up their campaign against the Democratic leadership's climate and energy bill -- and telling business leaders to get with the program or get out of the way.

On Tuesday, a group of key Republicans hosted a summit on Capitol Hill to bash the Waxman-Markey bill as an "energy tax" that would cost average Americans $3,100 a year (though that figure has been thoroughly debunked). "This legislation represents, and is tantamount to, an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals in Washington, D.C.," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who spearheaded the event.

Representatives from industry groups that oppose the climate bill, like the National Association of Manufacturers, spoke at the summit, but there were no panelists from companies and business groups calling for a carbon cap. The number of businesses advocating climate action is growing, and they're becoming more vocal -- witness Johnson & Johnson and Nike's recent demand that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stop opposing the House climate bill.

Grist asked Pence during a press conference after the summit what he would say to business leaders who argue that a climate bill is needed. "I don't want to confirm that business leaders are asking for a cap or not asking for a cap," he replied.

Reminded that the U.S. Climate Action Partnership is asking for a cap -- its members include the leaders of Duke Energy, ConocoPhillips, and DuPont, who told the House on April 22 that climate action is needed -- Pence was dismissive.

"Well, I am aware that some are," said Pence. "I just would say to any American who is prepared to endorse a national energy tax, that there's a better solution, and that they should keep their powder dry, and take their case to the American people that they don't need, particularly during this very difficult time in the economic life of our nation, to raise the energy cost on our businesses and on American families."

Watch the exchange on video (and then keep on reading below):

Believe it or not?

Another reporter asked Pence whether he and other House Republicans believe climate change is a problem that needs to be addressed.

"I think you would find among House Republicans varying opinions on the man-made origins of global warming," Pence said.

"But let me assure you, whatever Republicans may think about the science and the arguments over global warming, Republicans are all committed to a cleaner environment," he continued. "We're all committed to encouraging the development of clean-coal technologies, and cleaner air. And so while some may like to bog this debate down in the science over the man-made origins of global warming, we prefer rather to focus on let's all move toward a horizon of cleaner air, and we believe we can do that without costing American jobs and putting an extraordinary energy tax on the American people."

Asked about his personal beliefs on the subject, Pence said, "There's no question there have been [climatic] changes ... I am a skeptic whether or not man-made actions are responsible for that."

The party of "no"

The summit also served as the kick-off event for a new coalition of Republicans calling themselves the "American Energy Solutions Group." Chaired by Pence, the group includes familiar House climate skeptics like Joe Barton (R-Texas), John Shimkus (R-Ill.), and Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.).

They plan to introduce an energy plan of their own that's heavy on oil, gas, "clean coal," and nuclear -- much like the bill they introduced last summer and touted during an unsuccessful sit-in at the Capitol. Pence said they would have a new bill written by the end of the summer.

For now, though, the group's focus will be saying "no" to the Democratic climate and energy bill. "Our first objective is to really expose the profound error of a national energy tax," said Pence.

The Republicans also hope to foment disagreement among House Democrats, who are having a tough enough time on their own coming to agreement about the climate bill. "We call upon our fellow Democrats to say, let us reject this now," said Fred Upton (R-Mich.). "Let us not proceed with this issue."

Tuesday's summit is just the first of a series of similar events to be held around the country. The next one is scheduled for May 27 in Indiana -- Pence's home state -- to be followed by more in Pennsylvania and California.

The House Republicans are betting that this road show and the larger strategy of attacking a Democratic climate bill will give them a leg up in the 2010 elections. "The American people have a year and a half to decide whether to change management around here," Pence said.

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I give a lot of talks on climate change and what we should do about it. Invariably, at the end, some smug white haired guy in his sixties raises his hand and says something like this: "I'm a smart guy (Phd, engineer, whatever—he lays out the credentials) and I'm a critical thinker. (of course!) and in my research on climate, I've come across a lot of controversy on the science. I don't think we're even close to resolution on this."

This comment is, of course, incredibly intellectually lazy, because the scientific community has rarely had such comprehensive understanding of an issue. It's not a matter of consensus, it's that scientists all over the world, speaking different languages, using different methodologies, and under different ideologies, are all finding the same thing--climate change is happening and is human caused.

What's so annoying about Mr. "I'm a free thinker" is that if he really were a critical free thinker, he'd ponder for just a second the question of why, with all this good science, he's still on the fence. And if he researched that just a little bit, he'd find out that ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel interests have spend tens of millions of dollars over several decades supporting scientific disinformation on climate, with the express goal of putting doubt into the minds of Americans, with the intent of protecting profits from carbon regulation.

This isn't a conspiracy theory: ExxonMobil's CEO recently renounced the practice. (Mostly—see here for details.) And the whole scam was even further, and perhaps penultimately, exposed by Andy Revkin in the New York Times. Revkin points out that the industry ignored its own scientists! But the damage is done—the most successful and destructive marketing campaign in the history of the world—using the same tactics, and some of the same people as the tobacco industry—has led to an American population that is actually less concerned about climate change as a human caused problem now than a few years ago.

In my world, we say: “these people are dying off.” Or “they’re so clueless, forget about them.” But these guys are coming through the windows at me every day, and they seem pretty damn healthy! Last week, our CEO handed me two climate denier CDs guests had given him (both have been widely, spectacularly debunked). Regardless, things seem to be getting worse, not better. This is a catastrophe, but one with a significant opportunity attached.

Mr. Skeptic, the most arrogant, damaging, useless and intellectually lazy branch of humanity living today, could use his particular personality and worldview to become a productive, hopeful, helpful, and constructive member of society by turning his self-lauded critical thinking skills to the question of exactly why he's a doubter.

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Debate on the House climate bill got heated on Friday as Al Gore and Newt Gingrich -- two lightning-rod political figures -- testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Gingrich came crying foul that Congress is poised to begin regulating Jacuzzis, while Gore – you guessed it! –testified to the urgent need to pass an aggressive bill to address the climate crisis.

Veeping it real

Former Sen. John Warner and former veep Al Gore.Gore told the committee that they are discussing "one of the most important pieces of legislation ever introduced in Congress."

"I believe this legislation has the moral significance equivalent to that of the civil rights legislation of the 1960s and the Marshall Plan of the late 1940s," said Gore, before delving into some of the current and projected impacts of a warmer planet. His testimony overall focused on the ways that a climate bill could spur new industry and create a more stable economy, in addition to protecting life on the planet from the effects of climate change.

"The U.S. needs to act "not next year, this year," he said. "Each day we continue on our current path, America loses more of its competitive edge. And each day we wait, we increase the risk that we will leave our children and grandchildren an irreparably damaged planet."

Former Republican Sen. John Warner (R), who last year cosponsored the Senate's Climate Security Act, appeared beside Gore to make the point that climate change is a nonpartisan issue

"This particular moment in our history is critical. Future generations will look back at this day in the future, and see what we did, and maybe what we didn't do," said Warner. "There is a desire among broad cross sections of the American people to do something. They want it done."

He also stressed the need to act as soon as possible. "It's only going to get tougher and more complicated for future Congresses," said Warner.

But the committee's Republican members paid little heed to Warner's words and spent the bulk of the day questioning whether humans are causing warming, and maligning the climate bill as an energy tax. (One member even questioned whether Gore was trying to profit from climate policy.)

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), one of the committee's resident skeptics, dismissed Gore's warnings as "alarmist predictions." "Some of the phenomena that you indicate are obviously occurring ... but to lay that at the feet of global warming is not in line with the science," said Barton.

Gore, undeterred, used this as an opportunity to highlight the article on the front page of Friday's New York Times that explains how a fossil-fuel industry group hid the findings of its own scientists, who determined that climate change was in fact happening.

"With all due respect, I believe you've relied on sources whom you've trusted who have given you bad information," Gore told Barton. "The largest corporate carbon polluters in America, 14 years ago, asked their own people to conduct a review of all of this science. And their own people told them, 'What the international scientific community is saying is correct, there is no legitimate basis for denying it.' Then, these large polluters committed a massive fraud -- far larger than Bernie Madoff's fraud."

"They are the Bernie Madoffs of global warming," Gore continued. "They ordered the censoring and removal of the scientific review that they themselves conducted, and like Bernie Madoff, they lied to the people who trusted them in order to make money. These corporations ought to apologize to the American people for conducting a massive fraud for the last 14 years."

Other Republicans offered similar skeptical comments, including Rep. Michael Burgess of Texas. "No one who has come before this committee, from a scientific basis, has shown us the smoking gun that mankind is causing this to happen," claimed Burgess. "Anything can be proven if you're willing to take the time with the numbers."

Later in his remarks, Gore challenged the skeptics. "Not too long from now, the next generation is going to look back at the early part of this century and ask one of two questions. Either they'll ask, 'What were you thinking? Didn't you hear the scientists? Why did you prefer to listen to some outlier quack that got money from these carbon polluters that were engaged in a massive fraud? Why didn't you listen to the global scientific community?" said Gore.

"Or they'll ask a second question, the one I want them to ask: 'How did you find the moral courage to look past the short-term problems of the day and rise to solve a problem that some said was inconvenient to address?'"

Nothing Newt under the sun

The day's second star witness, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, didn't express outright skepticism that climate change is caused by humans, but did suggest that it might not be as bad as some have predicted -- and that even if it were, the government shouldn't be trusted to do anything about it.

"Make no mistake about it: This bill amounts to a one to two trillion dollar energy tax levied on a struggling economy, which is destructive and wrong," said Gingrich. "An energy tax punishes senior citizens. It punishes rural Americans. If you use electricity, it punishes you; if you use heating oil, it punishes you; if you use gasoline, it punishes you. This bill will increase your cost of living and it could kill your job."

(If you're experiencing some cognitive dissonance, yes, this is the same Newt Gingrich who last year sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi and claimed, "Our country must take action to address climate change." That was before he went on to do that whole "Drill here, drill now, pay less" thing.)

Gingrich spent much of his testimony decrying the bill, claiming it would turn the energy secretary into a "Jacuzzi czar" because it directs the Department of Energy to set higher energy-efficiency standards for products like hot tubs. "The difference between being liberal and conservative in America ... is whether you think consumers should decide the kind of Jacuzzi they should have rather than the government," he said.

He criticized the "federal bureaucracy" for doing a poor job of setting appliance standards in the past, and for failing to follow through on energy policy -- though the failures he cited were all from the Bush era.

Gingrich went on to say that he thinks climate change is happening, but he accused Gore of making "deeply misleading assertions" and challenged figures on future sea-level rise and decline of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.

He also argued for more studies of the problem. "On the facts of climate change, we need a national inquiry," said Gingrich. "I want to invite Vice President Al Gore to participate in a nonpartisan inquiry, and I'd love to have this committee agree to help sponsor it, so that every high school and college campus this coming October could have a discussion about the facts."

"There is a sufficient debate over facts ... that would be very useful to have," he continued. "I think there is no evidence we need to rush to a massive energy tax increase."

What, then, did Gingrich propose? Among "reasonable, affordable steps that might work," he listed increased domestic oil and gas drilling, expanded use of ethanol and nuclear energy, and development of "clean coal" technologies.

Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chair and co-author of the climate bill, clearly grew annoyed with Gingrich. "When the American people hear statements that you have made, they get scared. Which is exactly what I think is intended," said Waxman. "I believe that you are trying to give us a false choice. Our economic future and clean energy are inextricably intertwined. The economy that will grow the fastest in this century will be the one that makes the greatest investment in new energy technologies."

"Your ideas are not bold," he continued. "They’re a repeat of the old scare tactics."

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) quoted Gingrich in a 2007 Frontline interview in which he said that cap-and-trade was something he "would strongly support."

"I think many people will ask what happened to the old Newt Gingrich," said Inslee. "We expected an optimist, someone who believes in the creative power of the American economy, but we've had a sudden attack of pessimism that we can't solve this problem."

Now what?

After three full days of testimony from 69 different witnesses, committee leaders must now get down to the tough work of hammering out the details of the bill, so the full committee can begin offering and voting on amendments to it -- a process likely to start next week.

In order to pass the bill out of the committee, the authors will have to sate the committee's moderates, who have circulated a lengthy list of suggested changes. They want a reduction of the renewable electricity standard, free giveaway of many carbon credits to electric utilities, and lower standards for new coal-fired power plants. Their list also suggests lowering the bill's overall goal for reducing emissions by 2020, from 20 percent to 6 percent.

These proposals to make the legislation less stringent will likely not sit will with Waxman, bill coauthor Ed Markey (D-Mass.), and the committee's other more liberal members. But Waxman indicated that some deal-making will need to happen to get a bill passed.

"To succeed, we're going to have to bridge interests between environmentalists and industries, Democrats and Republicans," Waxman said during Friday's hearing.

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Andrew Revkin

New York Times reporter Andy Revkin has a blockbuster story showing that the Global Climate Coalition, the main industry group that spent much of the 1990s seeking to sow doubt in journalists' and politicians' minds about the reality of climate change, knew all along that it was real and dangerous:

The amazing thing about this story is not that industry deceived journalists about the threat of climate change, but that journalists are still buying industry deceptions to this day - just different ones.

Having finally lost the battle about the reality of climate change, these same industries and their backers in Congress have come up with a different deception: that bold action on climate change would somehow negatively affect the economy.

In fact, there's overwhelming evidence showing that climate change is causing hundreds of billions of dollars in drag on the U.S. and world economies as a result of drought, flood, sea level rise (Hurricane Katrina alone caused more than $100 billion in damage), and greater spending on hot-weather accoutrements like air conditioning. NRDC estimates the damage from just four impacts at $2,000 per family every single year.  And that number doesn't even consider, for example, the $167 billion annual health care costs attributable to regular old cancer-and-asthma inducing coal fired power plants.

Nevertheless, many journalists, including even many at The New York Times (here and here (h/t Joseph Romm) for instance) repeat as received truth industry lobbyists' latest myth that continuing to spew pollution is somehow good for the economy.

I'm sure the oil and coal industries have a memo somewhere that will come out in 15 years showing that, in fact, their economists knew the environmentalists were right all along: a clean energy economy will in fact boost GDP, create millions of new clean energy jobs, and save consumers money on their electricity bills.

But until that memo comes out, they're going to continue peddling totally concocted junk economics about dirty energy to reporters  - and impede the creation of the clean energy economy.

It's time for journalists to learn from experience that no matter what your instincts or how slick and knowing the industry flacks seem, they cannot be trusted. They can't be trusted when they say tobacco is safe, they can't be trusted when they deny the need for seat belts, they can't be trusted when they deny the dangers of climate change, and they most certainly can't be trusted when it comes to the new green economy. 

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